


Roadside Blues

by pprfaith



Series: A Darker Buffy [10]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Sons of Anarchy
Genre: Alternate Buffy Series, Alternate Universe, And some Food, Buffy Insert, Canon Divergence, First Meeting, Gen, Not Beta Read, Past Relationships, Pre-Relationship, Slice of Life, Standard SoA everything warning, Standard SoA language warning, WTF, We have reached the dregs of my unfinished story folder, a dash of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 10:16:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20758739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pprfaith/pseuds/pprfaith
Summary: The author presents the obligatory Buffy, the Vampire Slayer / Sons of Anarchy crossover nobody ever wanted.Buffy, meet Jax.





	Roadside Blues

**Author's Note:**

> Look at the tags. Look at the summary. Now look at me. Yeah. All that.

+

At first, when Jax looks up from a busted old Mustang to see a tiny blonde pushing a big bike into the Teller Morrow yard, he wonders who the hell allowed a sweetbutt to handle a bike.

Then a few details register. First of all, she’s pushing a pretty beat up looking Indian that he’s never seen before. Secondly, she’s not a sweetbutt of the Sons and she sure as hell isn’t dressed like one in sturdy jeans and heavy boots, leather jacket draped over the bike’s seat. 

Jax concludes that a) she’s a customer and b) he should probably get his ass into gear and pretend like he’s actually working here, or something. 

He wipes his hands reasonably clean and steps out of the bay into the sun. “Hey,” he greets, “Nice ride.”

She smiles at him and up close, she looks pretty damn young. As in, jailbait young. What the hell is that tiny thing doing with that bike? She looks like going over eighty would blow her right off the back, all blonde, dainty fluff, big eyes and slim curves. She barely reaches his chest, for Christ’s sake. 

“Not right now,” she admits, pouting a little. Cute.

“What happened?”

She shrugs, puts down the stand and lets go of the handles, clenching and unclenching her fingers to get them uncramped. “Started making a funny noise a few hours ago. It got bad enough that I’m scared to drive anymore.”

Funny noises. Right.

She gives him a sheepish look and he can’t stop himself from asking, “You don’t have a clue, do you?”

He expects her to get snippy, but she just shrugs. “I inherited the bike. Don’t really know much more than how to change the oil.” Something sad flickers across her face before she shakes it off. 

Preemptively, Jax changes the subject. “Let’s have a look at her, then, yeah?”

It’s almost closing, but the girl’s hot and the bike’s interesting, so what the hell. He takes charge of the machine, pushing her into the shade of an empty bay and parking her there. Absently, he lights up and, because Gemma raised a gentleman, he offers the girl one. 

She shakes her head blandly and it’s his turn to shrug. 

Two bays down, Tig slams the hood of a Jetta down and slaps it once. “I’m outta here, boss,” he hollers as he ambles over. “Or d’ya need me to do anything else?” 

He slings an arm over a rolling shelf and gives the girl a look that he probably thinks is smooth. Jax shakes his head. “Nah, man.”

“Then I’m outta here.” He restrains himself from making any lecherous comments. At his dayjob, Tig can almost mimic the behavior of a decent human being. Most of the time.

Jax raises his hand in silent acknowledgement and then crouches down, looking for anything obvious. For shits and giggles, he checks the oil and tells the blonde, “Well, you did a decent job with the oil at least.”

That gets him a ghost of a smile and a brief, “Thanks. I’m Buffy, by the way.”

She tenses like she’s waiting for something, but he’s friends with men called Opie, Tig and Juice. He has nothing to say about her name. After a moment, she yawns widely and rubs her arms, like she’s cold despite the heat. Tired. Tired as hell. 

“Jax,” he answers, “So what brings you here?”

“The road,” she shoots back, deadpan.

He snorts, takes a drag and rounds the bike, checking out the other side. “The road taking you anywhere?”

“Lots of places.”

This time he outright laughs. “Not easy on the small talk, are you?”

Her smile is unapologetic and he likes that, likes how she stands with her back straight and against a wall, watching him and the empty yard in equal measure. He saw her check out his patches earlier, reading the VP and then dismissing it all because she’s not from around here. No fucking clue as to who he is. It’s refreshing in a way. Everyone in this damn town knows Jax by sight, if not by the sound of his engine. But this little girl with a helping of bitch in her doesn’t know him from the ground she walks on. 

“Not really. You’re a one-percenter, aren’t you?” Startled, he looks up, finds her leaning against the wall, one foot braced against it. She’s neither scared nor gloating. Just making an observation. Little girl has balls. Big ones.

“Yeah?” he asks, challenging.

She waves a hand toward Tig’s general direction. “Your friend’s not real subtle with what he’s packing,” she informs him. She must have seen the idiot’s piece when he leaned on the shelf. He makes a note to tell the older man that little girls can make him on first sight.

“What’s it to you?”

“Nothing, really. My boyfriend tried the club life once. Didn’t take.” There’s that look again, sadness and hardness, the way Gemma looks when Jax tries to talk about his old man.

He looks away, finishes his cursory inventory of the bike. With a headshake he straightens, flicks the glowing butt into onto the concrete and shoots her a lazy smirk. “Gotta take her apart. Not tonight, though.”

The face she makes tells him what he already expected. That she knew that was going to be his answer and that she’s not happy with it anyway.

“Since you’re new to town and all, how about I take you out to dinner and then drop you at the motel?”

She cocks her hip, crosses her arms. “Are you hitting on me?”

Jax presses a hand to his chest. “I’m sorry,” he gasps. “Was that too subtle for you?”

He steps into her personal space without giving her a chance to answer, leans in real close, until he can smell the last remains of her vanilla shampoo, mixed in with dust and sweat, and murmurs low in her ear, “How about,” he asks her, enjoying the way she shivers, just a little, against his chest, “I take you out for a long, hard ride. On my bike.”

He tacks the last bit on too late, leaving his question not even an innuendo, but a straight up invitation. She’s stranded, she’s hot, she’s the kind of stubborn that makes him a little horny. Why not?

She raises one hand, plants it firmly on his chest and shoves. He actually has to take half a step to compensate. 

“I’ll take the dinner,” she tells him, “no strings.”

Grinning widely, he waves for her to lead the way to the office so he can lock up. “I can work with that.”

+

“So,” he asks, kicking back after fries and a burger, beer in hand, legs stretched long under the table. And if they’re bracketing her calves, well, she’s not complaining. “How’d you end up with that Indian?”

She takes a sip of her own drink – coke – and leans back, giving him a searching look. “You sure you wanna open that can of worms?” the expression seems to say. 

He shrugs. Why the fuck not. She’s new and unfamiliar and a decent distraction from the pile of shit his life’s recently turned into. There’s a reason he’s here right now and not at the clubhouse, where the same old faces churn the same old bullshit, over and over and over. His wife, his dead father, his asshole of a stepdad, the Mayans, the fucking gun running.

“It used to belong to my boyfriend.”

“You take the bike in the divorce?” he asks and doesn’t wince at the reminder of his own divorce and the way his bitch of a soon-to-be-ex-wife refuses to sign the fucking papers. 

“He didn’t need it anymore,” she hedges.

“Sounds like a story.”

She tilts her head, takes a sip from her glass, frowns a little. Then she seems to decide something, because suddenly she rolls her shoulders back and starts talking, looking him straight in the eye the whole time, like he’s not allowed to not listen. Not now that he made her talk.

“You know how it goes,” she starts, “boy and girl are mortal enemies in high school. Girl gets into trouble, boy is her unwilling knight in shining armor, they both realize that they’re not so different and start to date. Girl’s trouble catches up with her, boy helps her out, they blow outta town together. Boy thinks he’s a hero now, does something stupid, gets his ass killed. Girl takes his bike and keeps going.”

She spreads her hands on the table, palms up. _There you go._

There’s about a million things she’s not saying, all the nuances you need to fill a story like that, but he can read between the lines well enough. On the road, everyone has a story. Some are sadder than others and this one… it’s a common tragedy. Love, crime and death. 

Life of a Son, baby.

He doesn’t say he’s sorry, because he isn’t. Instead he demands, “Shit, you’re a runaway, aren’t you?” High school sweethearts blowing outta town together. Gotta be.

He _knew_ she looked like jailbait. 

With a squint she asks, “Uhm. What’s the date?”

He tells her and she blinks, surprised. “Huh. I missed my birthday,” she finally tells him. “Last week. I’m actually eighteen now.” Does a little fistpump. “No longer a runaway!”

Nine years younger than him. Also, legal. Laughing, he raises his bottle, toasts her. “Happy birthday, then!”

“Yeah,” she clacks her glass against his beer, takes a sip. “So what about you? You got any deep dark secrets you wanna divulge?”

“You know the biggest,” he says, tugging on his cut, “and it ain’t real secret. Got a wife,” he adds, for no particular reason, except perhaps that his brothers don’t really care about his drama, Gemma keeps telling him good riddance and Clay stays out of it. Opie would listen, but Opie is doing five in Chino. He’s never even fucking met Wendy. “Filed two weeks ago. She likes to get high and drop by the house to sling shit at me.”

“Sounds lovely.”

“You should meet her.”

“I’ll pass.”

This time, she’s the one who raises her drink and toasts him, quietly. “To getting over it.”

“Yeah.”

+

“Is this the point where you try to seduce me into a night of dirty sex?” Buffy asks, stomping her feet against the chilly night.

They’re outside in the parking lot of the restaurant, headed for Jax’s bike. “That an invitation?”

She smirks. It makes her look older. “Nah. Just trying my hand at this small talk stuff. How long’s my bike gonna take?”

“Couple of days. We should have all parts, but first I gotta find what’s wrong. Maybe patch up a few other things. You were pretty rough on her.”

She huddles in her leather jacket. “Pike didn’t exactly have the time to teach me.”

Before he got killed. Right. “How much?” she wants to know.

Ahh, here comes the issue. “Depending on the parts? A couple hundred bucks.”

Her wince is really answer enough as to whether or not she’s got that much cash stuffed in her ratty backpack. She rubs a hand over her face, tired again. Dinner didn’t hold her up for long. 

A sigh. “You know anyone who’s hiring?”

Briefly, he considers her options. “Diner in town is always looking. A few other places, if you’re not picky.” And then, running on an impulse he doesn’t really care to analyze, “You good for tonight?”

She really, really needs to work on her pokerface. Give that girl gangbangers with guns shoved down their pants and she’s cool. Ask her a personal question and she grimaces like a little kid. 

He stubs out his ever present smoke on a lamppost, drops the stub. “I gotta guestroom at my place.”

“I’m not sleeping with you for a place to stay,” she snaps, indignant. Proud. It makes him like her more. Reminds him of Tara, in a way, all spunk and anger and pride. More level-headed, though. 

Except maybe that’s just his memory screwing with him. Last time he and Tara saw each other, they were Buffy’s age. It seems an age ago now; almost a decade, a marriage and half a continent between them. Christ, but he’s getting old. 

“’S why I said ‘guestroom’, not ‘bedroom’.”

Her expression turns owlish. It’s fucking adorable. “Seriously? The big, bad biker is offering a girl in need his guestroom with no ulterior motive, whatsoever?”

He grinds his teeth, already regretting the charity. “Maybe my ulterior motive is getting a decent breakfast.” Or they can just forget he tried his hand at this Samaritan shit.

“Isn’t that what sweetbutts are for?” One eyebrow raised, all cocky again.

He must seem surprised because she stops walking. “What? I told you, boyfriend tried the club life.”

And then, “Alright.”

“What?”

“Alright. Breakfast for a bed. Alright. It’s a deal.” She even holds out her hand for him to shake.

What the hell. He takes it. “I hope you know how to make waffles. I have a craving.”

+

She does.

+

**Author's Note:**

> My headacanon for this is that Buffy took off with Pike at the end of the movie and the series never happened. Instead she shacks up with Jax and everything is sunshine and puppies. Maybe they have a threesome with Juice. Maybe they don't. Make of that what you will.


End file.
